


memory

by soulofme



Series: sheith sentence prompts [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, M/M, alternate canon???, the scene in season 1 at keith's shack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 11:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15118763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: To this Shiro, he doesn’t mean anything. He’s not a puzzle to solve, a present to unwrap. He’s just the kid who saved him, and Keith doesn’t know if he can handle being only that.





	memory

**Author's Note:**

> [sentence prompt](http://stefansalfatore.tumblr.com/post/144981395239/sentence-prompts) #24: do i know you?
> 
> Also if you're interested this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlgYxa6BMU) heavily inspired this fic

Shiro is alive.

It doesn’t seem real. Keith keeps glancing over at him every few seconds, eyes scanning him to see if it’s really him. Shiro’s…different, now. Scarred. Wounded. He’s not the boy whose room Keith would sneak into, or the boy who’d been the first one to make Keith feel special.

He’d be lying if he said it doesn’t kill him to see Shiro like this. He moves like he’s afraid, like one wrong step will have disastrous results. Keith doesn’t want to think of what happened to him out there.

Shiro slips out of Keith’s shitty shack. They all watch him go, and he wonders if everyone else is just as afraid as he is. Afraid that Shiro will just keep on going, going until he disappears all over again.

Keith turns away from the window. He chances a look at the others. The big one looks nervous. There’s a sheen of sweat covering his forehead, and his shirt is damp around his armpits. He flushes when he catches Keith’s eye and presses back against the wall.

The boy with the loud mouth is going on and on about Shiro. He’s waving his arms about wildly, saying something about him being a hero or whatever. He accuses Keith of trying to steal the glory—again—and Keith pretends he hasn’t heard him.

The short one is looking at his bulletin board, glancing down at a notebook every few seconds. Keith finds himself looking at the pictures, at the sticky notes and red string, and feels a lump form in his throat.

“I’m gonna check on him,” he announces. Loud Mouth raises an eyebrow.

“Why, so you can—”

“Lance.” The big one sounds exhausted.

Keith ignores them all and steps outside. There’s a light breeze. Keith watches red dirt dance around his feet. He doesn’t look at Shiro’s footsteps, swept away by the wind, never to be found again.

He stops a foot or so behind Shiro, staring at the broad expanse of his back. His chest had a hole in it for the better part of a year. But now, it almost feels like it has been filled. Not completely, because this isn’t the Shiro he remembers. But the man in front of him is still Shiro, and God…

He clears his throat, fully aware of how Shiro jumps at the sound.

“Hey,” Shiro says. He looks embarrassed as hell.

“Hey,” Keith says. A heavy silence presses between them and he sucks in a deep breath. “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Shiro says, easy as water. But then he looks at Keith with a little furrow between his brows. “I’m…sorry.”

“For what?” Keith asks, taking another step. His hand reaches up to touch Shiro’s shoulder, more instinct than anything, but he forces it back down.

“I can’t remember a lot,” Shiro admits then. Keith’s heart begins to break before he even finishes the sentence. “I know my name and where I was born, and I remember the mission, but everything else…”

“It’s okay,” Keith says.

“Hey,” Shiro murmurs again. “Do I know you?”

And fuck, if that doesn’t just ruin him. Keith bites hard on the inside of his cheek. The pain, and the copper tang of blood, does little to ground him. But it’s better than make it apparent that Shiro’s words feel like a knife has been thrust into his heart and violently twisted.

“Yes,” he manages to say. He’s proud of how his voice doesn’t crack, even as his mind slowly begins to crumble.

God, he can’t take this.

“Were we friends?” Shiro asks. He sounds like even he doesn’t believe that, like he thinks there’s something more to it.

Keith wants to tell him about the first time they met, when he’d bumped into Shiro but acted like Shiro had been in the wrong. No amount of apologies made him cool off, not until Shiro showed up at his door at midnight with gas station snacks and a grin. He’d apologized profusely and all but begged for Keith to come with him, and so he had.

They ended up in the desert, watching the stars like they were in some shitty Hallmark romance movie. All Keith could do was look at Shiro’s face, at how bright it got when he talked about his friends and his family, and how bright it stayed when he was able to weasel a few stories out of Keith.

But Keith can’t tell him about that. Keith can’t tell this Shiro about how much he loved him, or how he spent every night praying to gods he didn’t believe in just so Shiro would come home safe. He can’t talk about how he misses something as simple as his smell, or the way his eyes would curve as he smiled, or even just the warmth of his leg pressing against Keith’s when they’d sit together.

This Shiro doesn’t remember him. This Shiro doesn’t remember how intently he’d peel back each of Keith’s layers, going and going until he reached the core. This Shiro doesn’t remember the consistent way he’d encourage Keith, the way he’d hold him close and give him promises that were always kept.

To this Shiro, he doesn’t mean anything. He’s not a puzzle to solve, a present to unwrap. He’s just the kid who saved him, and Keith doesn’t know if he can handle being only that.

But it’s better than nothing. It’s better than thinking every fucking day that Shiro was dead and that he’d never see him again. So Keith nods, nods and looks away from Shiro’s confused expression.

“We were…close friends,” Keith says. Shiro’s head tilts to the side.

“Like, best friends?” he asks.

Keith swallows. “Yeah, Shiro. Best friends.”

It’s not a lie. Shiro was—is—his best friend. No one else had ever held that title. No one else ever will, because Keith’s got a special spot in his heart just for him.

Shiro’s expression softens.

“Thank you for saving me, then,” he says. He glances back at the shack. “Maybe we should get back.”

He starts to walk off, but stops when he notices Keith’s just standing there.

“You coming?”

“In a sec,” Keith says, and his voice does crack then. But he doesn’t react to it, and he tells himself that Shiro doesn’t either.

Shiro nods, flashing him a small smile, the same smile he’d give him at the most unexpected moments, and Keith feels sick as hell. But he smiles back, a fake little thing, something that Shiro would usually pick up in ten seconds flat. But Shiro is none the wiser.

And Keith hates that. But he won’t let it show. Not for one goddamn second. Because Shiro is alive…

And that’s all that matters.


End file.
